Memoir  of 


Daniel  Lathrop  Coit 


1754-1833 


A  Memoir 

of 

Daniel  Lathrop  Coit 

of 
Norwich,    Connecticut 

I754"l833 

Privately  printed 


Norwich 

The  Bulletin  Press 

1907 


THIS  story  of  the  life  of  ^Daniel  Lathrop  Coit, 
compiled  by  one  of  his  grandsons,  is  offered  to  his 
descendants  who  never  knew  him,  as  a  tribute  to 
his  memory. 


Lowthorpe,  Norwich,  Conn. 
Christmas,  igoj. 


IV.  C.  G. 
E.  S.  G. 
L.  G.  L. 


Daniel  Lathrop  Coit 

A  WISE  man— was  it  Plutarch  who 

in  his  time  took  many  lives?— 

said  "it  is  a  desirable   thing   to   be 

well  descended  but  the  glory  belongs 

to  the  ancestors." 

However  desirable  it  may  be  to  give 
honor  to  whom  honor  is  due,  it  is 
imperative  to  limit  the  number  of 
the  ancestors  now  to  be  commemo- 
rated, lest  beginning  our  family  tree, 
as  Lord  Chesterfield  did,  in  the 
garden  of  Eden  with  Adam  de  Stan- 
hope and  Eve  de  Stanhope,  we  find 
ourselves  burdened  with  a  long  list 
of  forbears,  of  whom  it  may  only  be 
said  "they  lived  and  died,"  a  list 
scarcely  more  entertaining  than  the 
book  of  Chronicles.  The  particular 
ancestor  to  whom  we  are  now  to  pay 
our  tribute  of  honor  is  Daniel  La- 
throp Coit. 

Nearly  fifty  years  ago,  his  young- 


2  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

est  son,  with  a  graceful  pen,  wrote  a 
brief  sketch  of  his  life  which  was 
read  to  his  children  and  grandchil- 
dren, assembled  in  his  old  home,  at 
the  Norwich  Bicentennial  Celebra- 
tion in  1859.  That  sketch  we  cannot 
hope  to  improve,  but  we  may  extend 
and  enlarge  it,  not  without  regret 
that,  as  none  of  his  living  descend- 
ants can  supply  any  personal  remi- 
niscences, we  can  only  collect  and 
arrange  such  scattered  fragments  of 
his  history  as  are  found  in  remnants 
of  his  diaries,  in  faded  old  letters, 
and  in  time-stained  family  records. 

Of  his  English  ancestry  we  know 
next  to  nothing,  nor  is  it  probable 
that  our  knowledge  will  ever  be  in- 
creased, unless  some  enthusiastic 
genealogist  with  abundant  means 
and  leisure  shall  undertake  the  pious 
task  of  searching  for  treasures  that 
must  somewhere  lie  hidden  in  family 
or  public  archives  in  England. 

John  Coit,  the  pioneer  of  all  the 
Coits  in  this  country,  came  with  his 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  3 

wife  and  several  children  from 
Glamorganshire,  Wales,  to  Salem, 
Massachusetts,  as  early  as  1638. 
From  thence  he  removed  to  Glou- 
cester, where  he  became  a  selectman, 
and  there  he  remained,  says  tradi- 
tion, until  he  was  driven  off  by  In- 
dians. He  then  came  to  Saybrook, 
and,  in  about  1650,  with  several  other 
men  of  Gloucester,  established  him- 
self in  New  London,  where  he  died 
in  1659. 

His  son  Joseph  came  to  New  Lon- 
don with  him  and  spent  the  re- 
mainder of  his  life  there,  carrying 
on  the  business  of  shipbuilding.  He 
married  Martha  Harris  of  Wethers- 
field,  was  a  deacon  in  the  Church 
and  a  constable,  and  died  in  1704. 

John  Coit,  son  of  deacon  Joseph 
and  Martha,  born  in  1670,  died  in 
1744,  married  Mehetabel  Chandler  of 
Woodstock,  in  1695.  He  lived  an 
honorable  life  and  continued  in  his 
father's  business  as  a  shipbuilder. 

Joseph  Coit,  son  of  John  and  Me- 


4  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

hetabel,  born  in  1698,  died  in  1787, 
married  in  1739,  as  his  second  wife, 
Lydia  Lathrop,  daughter  of  Thomas 
Lathrop  of  Norwich,  and  sister  of 
the  Doctors  Daniel  and  Joshua  La- 
throp. Joseph  Coit's  mother  Me- 
hetabel  and  sister  Martha,  whose 
note  books  and  letters  are  in  exist- 
ence, have  been  fitly  commemorated 
by  the  great  granddaughters  of  Me- 
hetabel.  Following  the  family  tradi- 
tions he  went  to  Boston  at  the  age 
of  fourteen,  to  learn  to  be  a  ship- 
builder, "but  likt  it  not,"  and  having 
been  partly  incapacitated  by  an  in- 
jury to  his  foot  which  "spoilt  him 
for  a  carpenter"  he  relinquished  the 
business  and  went  to  sea,  making 
nineteen  voyages,  three  before  the 
mast,  five  as  mate,  and  eleven  as 
master.  Subsequently  he  engaged 
in  various  mercantile  and  commer- 
cial enterprises  in  New  London,  and 
was  a  manager  of  lotteries  chartered 
by  the  Colony  for  public  purposes  at 
a  time    when    good    men    regarded 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  5 

them  as  means  of  beneficence,  philan- 
thropy, and  grace. 

His  "daj^book,"  a  brief  journal  of 
part  of  his  life,  now  in  the  Lowthorpe 
archives,  records  many  pious  reflec- 
tions, his  two  marriages,  the  birth  of 
his  ten  children,  his  hair-breadth 
escapes  and  "remarkable  deliver- 
ances" from  shipwreck  and  starva- 
tion ;  from  lightning  when  the  meet- 
ing house  was  struck,  in  1735  \  and 
from  the  smallpox,  which  he  had 
"so  exceeding  bad"  that  it  seriously 
impaired  his  eyesight  and,  in  his  old 
age,  reduced  him  to  almost  total 
blindness. 

In  1775,  physical  infirmities,  family 
ties,  and  business  interests  brought 
him  to  Norwich,  the  early  home  of 
his  wife,  where  several  of  his  children 
were  already  settled.  After  living 
for  a  time  in  Thomas  Leffingweirs 
house,  near  what  is  now  the  corner 
of  Washington  Street  and  Harland 
Road,  he  and  his  wife  made  their 
home  in  the  new  house  just  built  by 


6  DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT 

their  son,  the  subject  of  this  sketch, 
whose  identity  is  now  sufficiently 
established. 

Daniel  Lathrop  Goit  was  born  Sep- 
tember 20,  1754,  in  New  London, 
where  he  received  an  elementary 
education,  and  then  came  to  Nor- 
wich as  an  apprentice  to  his  mother's 
brothers,  Doctors  Daniel  and  Joshua 
Lathrop,  who  were  engaged  in  an 
extensive  mercantile  business,  an  im- 
portant part  of  which  was  the  im- 
portation of  drugs.  A  memorandum 
in  his  handwriting,  dated  September 
24,  1776,  after  his  apprenticeship  was 
ended,  says  "agreed  with  my  uncle 
Daniel  Lathrop  to  continue  with 
him  a  year  at  the  rate  of  ^80  per 
annum  :  he  gave  me  encouragement 
that  whenever  business  was  such 
that  it  would  be  for  my  interest  he 
would  take  me  into  partnership." 

Although  business  prospects  dur- 
ing the  dark  days  of  the  war  were 
far  from  encouraging,  this  promise 
was  fulfilled,    and   he   continued   to 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  7 

live  on  terms  of  affectionate  intimacy 
with  his  uncle,  Dr.  Daniel,  and  his 
aunt,  Madam  Jerusha  Lathrop,  who, 
being  childless  in  their  advancing 
years,  regarded  him  almost  as  their 
own  son. 

Under  the  training  of  his  uncles  he 
acquired  excellent  business  habits, 
prudence,  enterprise,  accuracy  as  an 
accountant,  and  great  facility  as  a 
correspondent,  habits  that  were  in- 
valuable in  the  larger  affairs  which 
interested  him  in  after  years.  More- 
over, as  the3^  were  men  of  high 
character  and  principles,  college  grad- 
uates, "lovers  of  learning,  of  good 
men,  and  of  good  things,"  although 
he  himself  had  not  the  advantages 
of  a  collegiate  education,  he  was  in- 
spired by  their  influence  and  example 
to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  of 
the  useful  arts  and  sciences,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  everything  that  was 
available  in  the  best  English  litera- 
ture. 

To  be  loved  by  such'  a  woman   as 


8  DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT 

Madam  Lathrop  "was  a  liberal 
education."  Her  nephew  regarded 
her  with  filial  reverence,  and  she 
"fully  reciprocating  his  attachment, 
spoke  of  him  playfully  as  her  philo- 
sophical nephew."  Mrs.  Sigourney 
tells  us  that  she  herself  "thought  he 
was  a  second  Seneca,  and  always 
was  mute  in  his  presence,"  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  Mrs. 
Sigourney  was  thirty-seven  years  his 
junior. 

After  the  death  of  Dr.  Daniel  La- 
throp, in  1782,  Daniel  Lathrop  Coit 
continued  in  partnership  with  his 
uncle,  Doctor  Joshua,  under  the 
firm  name  of  Lathrop  &  Coit,  and 
having  extended  their  business  by 
relations  with  Coit  &  Smith  of  Hart- 
ford, and  Dr.  Thomas  Truman  of 
Providence,  it  was  increasingly  large 
and  profitable.  We  read  of  one  ship- 
ment from  England  valued  at  $40,000, 
and  it  was  by  no  means  restricted  to 
drugs  and  medicines  but  comprised 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  9 

a    great    variety    of     general     mer- 
chandise. 

At  the  close  of  May,  1783,  he  sailed 
from  Norwich  for  England,  partly 
with  the  view  of  enlarging  the  busi- 
ness connections  of  the  firm,  and 
partly  for  pleasure  and  the  advan- 
tages of  foreign  travel.  His  journal 
records  that  in  going  five  miles  down 
the  river  from  Norwich,  "the  sloop 
got  aground  only  fourteen  times," 
whereupon  he  went  ashore  and  walk- 
ed the  rest  of  the  way  to  New  London, 
where  he  spent  the  night.  The 
sloop,  the  "Polly  Braddick,"  came 
along  next  morning  and  having 
better  luck,  made  a  good  run  to  New 
York,  where  she  arrived  after  three 
days.  On  the  seventh  of  June  he 
embarked  on  the  brig  Iris,  with  nine 
cabin  passengers,  all  told,  including 
himself  and  Lynde  McCurdy,  who 
had  come  with  him  from  Norwich, 
and  was  his  constant  companion 
during  a  great  part  of  his  tour  in 
England. 


10  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

The  incidents  of  his  twenty-seven 
days'  voyage  from  New  York,  re- 
corded minutely  in  his  journal,  if 
not  in  themselves  very  remarkable, 
were,  to  a  youthful  traveler,  inland 
bred,  full  of  interest  and  excitement. 
A  century  and  a  quarter  has  not 
greatly  changed  the  appearance  of 
the  ocean  since  his  time  :  the  whales, 
and  porpoises,  and  sharks,  the  ice- 
bergs and  the  gulf  stream,  as  he  de- 
scribes them,  are  not  unlike  those 
seen  by  them  that  go  down  to  the 
sea  in  ships  and  occupy  their  busi- 
ness in  the  great  waters  to-day  :  the 
wind  and  weather,  and  the  "  run  "  of 
two  hundred  and  five  miles  as  the 
highest  daily  record,  were  as  inter- 
esting on  the  small  brig  Iris,  as  they 
are  now  on  a  steamer  seven  hun- 
dred feet  long,  with  a  speed  record 
three  times  as  great.  But  he  im- 
proved the  opportunity  to  make  ex- 
periments illustrating  the  pressure 
of  sea  water  at  various  depths  down 
to  one  hundred  and  twenty  fathoms, 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  11 

— seven  hundred  and  twenty  feet, — 
and  to  collate  from  the  "Annual 
Register"  varied  information,  from 
the  temperature  of  the  gulf  stream 
to  improved  culture  of  fruit  trees. 
The  habit  of  keenly  observing  and 
minutely  recording  natural  phenom- 
ena and  mechanical  processes  was  a 
characteristic  of  his  whole  life,  and 
many  pages  of  his  commonplace 
books  and  letters  are  filled  with  his 
comments  and  reflections. 

He  left  the  brig  at  the  Isle  of 
Wight  and  went  by  pilot  boat  to 
Portsmouth  where  he  viewed  with 
interest  the  town  with  its  fortifica- 
tions and  dock  yards.  Here  on  the 
stocks,  ready  for  launching,  he  saw 
the  ill-fated  Royal  George,  battle- 
ship, of  one  hundred  and  eight  guns, 
without  dreaming  that  she  was 
destined  to  sink  at  Spithead  a  few 
years  later  with  a  loss  of  eight  hun- 
dred lives,  for  whom  has  ever  since 
been  recited  Cowper's  requiem,  ' '  Toll 
for  the  Brave." 


12  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

After  a  day  in  Portsmouth,  with 
Dr.  Shepherd  and  Mr.  McCurdy,  his 
fellow  passengers  on  the  Iris,  they 
took  a  post-chaise  for  London,  and 
found  it  "  a  pretty  reasonable  way 
of  traveling  and  the  most  pleasant 
and  agreeable,"  as  indeed  it  must 
have  been  in  early  June,  over  good 
roads  where  every  mile  presented 
new  objects  of  interest.  Nothing 
escaped  his  attention,  the  roads,  the 
bridges,  the  cultivated  fields,  the 
hedges  and  pollard  willows,  the 
villages  and  small  towns,  the  rural 
cottages,  the  stately  mansions  and 
private  parks.  He  comments  on  the 
scarcity  of  wood  for  fuel,  and  gives 
it  as  his  opinion  that  "in  this  coun- 
try there  is  a  great  want  of  brooks 
and  rivlets."  This  recalls  a  remark 
of  one  of  his  descendants  that  "the 
great  lack  of  Norwich  is  lakes  !" 

The  sight  of  London  as  he  ap- 
proached it  was  "overwhelming,  and 
excited  wonder  and  amazement  by 
its  magnificence  and  grandeur. "    '  'At 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  13 

the  end  of  my  voyage  and  journey," 
he  continues,  "  I  have  kept  my  eyes 
in  so  constant  exertion  in  staring 
and  gazing  at  everything  I  have  seen 
that  they  are  wearied  and  really 
ache  for  want  of  rest,  for  which 
purpose  we  alight  at  the  New  York 
coffee  house,  discharge  our  postilion 
and  shut  ourselves  up  till,  with  the 
help  of  the  barber,  hair-dresser, 
hatter,  &c,  we  are  twisted  into  the 
appearance  and  shape  of  other  folks 
and  may  venture  abroad  in  an  ap- 
pearance that  will  not  cause  greater 
surprise  than  we  feel  ourselves." 

His  first  day  in  London  was  given 
to  Westminster  Abbe}^  and  to  Parlia- 
ment where  he  found  "a  great  want 
of  order  and  decorum  ;  the  honorable 
gentlemen,  like  a  parcel  of  boys, 
jumped  up  and  kicked  around  and 
out  of  the  room  a  bundle  of  papers 
that  had  been  returned  with  unac- 
ceptable amendments  by  the  Lords  !" 

Three  weeks  were  fully  occupied 
in  seeing  the  sights  of  the  wonderful 


14  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

city,  and  by  his  business  affairs  in 
which  his  usual  caution  was  mani- 
fest to  a  degree  that  was  somewhat 
disappointing  to  his  partners  at 
home  who  realized  more  than  he  did 
the  great  scarcity  of  imported  mer- 
chandise and  the  urgent  demand  for 
it.  But  as  the  definitive  treaty  of 
peace  with  England  had  not  been 
signed,  he,  on  his  part,  was  appre- 
hensive that  such  serious  commer- 
cial embarrassments  might  ensue  as 
would  be  detrimental  to  the  interests 
of  the  firm. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  at  the 
present  day,  when  an  order  for  a 
cargo  from  the  ends  of  the  earth 
cabled  in  the  morning  may  be  count- 
ermanded an  hour  later,  that  it  was 
then  an  affair  of  many  months  to 
mail  a  letter  and  receive  an  answer. 
Truman,  for  example,  received  only 
on  October  3,  a  letter  from  Coit  dated 
July  11,  nearly  three  months  in 
transit. 

Before  the  month  was  over,  having 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  15 

had  a  cold  "so  severe  that  he  could 
not  remember  that  he  was  ever  more 
unwell,"  and  realizing  that  "this 
very  noisy  city  is  not  the  place  for 
sick  people,  the  weather  being  the 
hottest  ever  known  in  London,  the 
thermometer  at  870,"  he  improved 
the  opportunity  to  set  out  in  a 
post-chaise  for  Birmingham  with  his 
friend,  Mr.  McCurdy.  The  trip 
was  after  his  own  heart  and  a 
very  full  record  he  kept  of  it.  He 
saw  several  great  estates  on  his  way 
to  Oxford  where  he  spent  two  days 
and  was  deeply  impressed  by  the 
college  buildings,  the  paintings  and 
the  libraries.  Of  Blenheim,  which 
he  went  sixteen  miles  out  of  his  way 
to  see,  he  says  "nature  and  art  seem 
here  to  have  combined  to  reward  my 
pains:  nature  indeed  has  been  pro- 
fuse, and  art  no  niggard." 

He  visited  many  other  magnificent 
estates  and  describes  them  at  length. 
At  Stratford  he  did  himself  "the 
honor  to  sit  in  Shakespear's  chair;  the 


16  DANIEL  LATHROP  COIT 

house  is  in  the  middle  of  the  town, 
very  small  and  mean,  with  an  old 
stone  floor  that  seemed  almost  worn 
out ;  but  as  the  apartments  were  not 
so  elegant  and  numerous  as  Lord 
Temple's  they  were  soon  viewed, 
and  we  gave  the  girl  who  was  our 
informer  a  trifle  and  left  it." 

At  every  important  town  he  visited, 
the  manufactures  were  of  first  and 
unfailing  interest.  At  Woodstock 
there  were  steel  and  gloves  ;  at  Birm- 
ingham, paper,  buttons,  bricks  and 
hardware  ;  at  Worcester,  pottery  and 
china  ware  ;  at  Clifton,  pipeworks  ; 
at  Bristol,  a  steam  corn  mill  and  a 
shot  factory.  A  shilling  that  he  paid 
at  Bristol  to  see  a  giant,  seven  and  a 
half  feet  high,  "was  not  illy  spent," 
but  the  prevailing  custom  of  tipping 
servants  at  inns  he  thought  "ridicu- 
lous." On  the  Sunday  he  "went  to 
church  in  the  morning,  and  to  meet- 
ing in  the  afternoon  and  found  the 
preachers  not  more  extraordinary 
than  at  home."     It  is  to  be  regretted 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  17 

that  from  Bristol  he  did  not  pursue 
his  journey  to  Glamorganshire,  not 
far  distant,  and  make  enquiry  con- 
cerning Coite  Castle,  and  his  Coit 
ancestry. 

In  returning  toward  London  he 
was  particularly  impressed  by  "Mr. 
Shenstone's  estate  called  the  Leas- 
owes."  He  says  "  it  is  the  most  rural 
and  romantic  and  has  the  greatest 
assemblage  of  natural  beauties  I  have 
ever  seen."  Without  following  his 
enthusiastic  description  of  the  place, 
it  may  be  observed  that  he  regretted 
that  he  had  not  time  to  copy  all  the 
poetical  inscriptions  that  marked  in- 
teresting points  of  view,  but  he  was 
compensated  for  this  loss  by  the  pur- 
chase of  Shenstone's  poems,  in  three 
volumes,  with  the  inscriptions  in  full. 

He  made  a  brief  stay  at  Bath,  and 
in  passing  Windsor  Castle  had  a 
glimpse  of  the  King  and  the  royal 
children,  and  after  an  absence  of  six- 
teen days  arrived  in  town  where  he 
found  his  business  affairs  in   good 


18  DANIEL  LATHROP   GOIT 

order,  his  purchases  packed  and 
ready  for  shipment,  and  also  re- 
ceived his  first  letters  from  home. 

Miss  Burney's  accounts  in  Evelina 
of  life  in  London,  Bath,  Clifton, 
Bristol,  and  of  the  amusements  at 
Ranelagh  and  Vauxhall  gardens, 
places  that  he  visited,  are  quite  in 
accordance  with  his  own  descriptions 
— and  it  suffices  to  say  that  he  found 
the  entertainments  at  the  latter 
places  somewhat  different  in  charac- 
ter from  anything  he  had  been 
accustomed  to  witness  on  Low- 
thorpe  Meadows  or  even  on  Chelsea 
Parade. 

Near  the  end  of  August  he  set  out 
for  Holland  where  he  spent  about 
three  weeks.  Unfortunately,  as  a 
considerable  portion  of  his  journal  is 
missing,  although  we  know  he  visit- 
ed Amsterdam,  Rotterdam,  Delft 
Haven  and  The  Hague  we  are  de- 
prived of  his  account  of  them.  But 
while  he  made  purchases  and  formed 
business  connections  that  continued 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  19 

for  years,  the  journey  as  a  pleasure 
trip  was  not  a  success.  Neither  the 
country  nor  the  inns  were  comforta- 
ble ;  the  people,  he  found  jealous  and 
inhospitable,  with  less  sociability 
among  themselves  than  there  is 
among  the  English.  At  a  certain 
place  he  desired  to  procure  a  carriage, 
"but  so  slow  and  awkward  is  the 
Dutch  method  of  doing  business,  it 
was  an  hour  before  I  could  get  one. 
In  the  first  place  a  messenger  must 
be  sent  for  the  commissary,  who 
orders  a  large  ship  bell  to  be  rung  to 
call  together  the  whole  fraternity  of 
drivers,  sixteen  in  number,  for  the 
purpose  of  casting  dice  to  determine 
who  shall  have  the  privilege  of  get- 
ting up  his  carriage,  but  lest  one 
ringing  shall  not  muster  the  whole, 
it  must  be  rung  three  times  which 
employed  perhaps  twenty  minutes  ; 
by  this  time  the  gentry  are  assembled 
and  ready  to  cast  the  lot ;  after  all 
have  thrown  the  one  to  whom  the 
lot  has  fallen  posts  off  for  his  horses, 


20  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

which  perhaps  are  feeding  in  the 
fields,  as  was  now  the  case ;  and 
after  some  time  he  comes  with  his 
machine  or  vehicle  of  conveyance 
which  is  difficult  to  describe,  it  be- 
ing neither  coach,  chaise  or  wagon." 
After  a  very  disagreeable  detention 
of  six  days,  on  account  of  bad 
weather,  at  Helvotsluys  where  he 
became  very  tired  and  anxious  to 
see  London,  he  took  the  packet  for 
Harwich  where  he  arrived  after  a 
rough  passage  of  twenty-one  hours. 
He  quotes  elsewhere,  apparently 
with  satisfaction,  Sir  William  Tem- 
ple's description  of  Holland,  as  fol- 
lows :  "It  is  a  country  where  the 
earth  is  better  than  the  air,  and 
profit  more  in  regard  than  honor : 
where  there  is  more  sense  than  wit : 
more  good  nature  than  good  humor, 
and  more  wealth  than  pleasure ; 
where  a  man  would  choose  rather  to 
travel  than  to  live,  shall  find  more 
things  to  observe  than  to  desire,  and 
more  persons  to  esteem  than  to  love." 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  21 

Instead  of  proceeding  directly  to 
London,  as  Ipswich  was  but  a  few 
miles  out  of  his  course,  he  went  there 
to  seek  the  acquaintance  of  Doctor 
William  Coyte,  a  physician  of  large 
practice  and  independent  fortune, 
hoping  to  establish  kinship  with 
him.  Entire  stranger  though  he 
was,  he  was  cordially  received  and 
entertained  by  the  Doctor,  whom  he 
found  "a  very  agreeable,  pleasant 
and  social  man  ;  his  wife,  likewise, 
very  pleasing,  and  his  daughter  very 
agreeable ;  in  short,  an  exceeding 
happy  family."  "The  Doctor's  for- 
tune," he  continues,  "is  such  as  to 
enable  him  to  live  in  as  affluent  cir- 
cumstances as  he  could  wish.  We 
had  an  exceeding  good  dinner  of  two 
kinds  of  fish,  a  boiled  pudding, 
chickens,  mutton,  partridges,  pigeon 
pie,  and  a  baked  custard  pudding, 
and  dessert  of  pears,  nectarines, 
grapes,  plums  and  hazel  nuts,  and 
after  dinner  the  port  and  sherry 
passed  briskly."     He  was  much  in- 


22  DANIEL  LATHROP  COIT 

terested  in  the  Doctor's  extensive 
botanical  garden  and  noble  glass 
house,  and,  on  the  whole,  "found 
him  so  clever  a  man  and  his  family 
so  clever"  that  he  wished  he  might 
find  a  more  certain  proof  of  relation- 
ship than  the  black  eyes,  for  which 
the  Coytes  of  England  are  as  noted 
as  the  Coits  of  America. 

He  was  thoroughly  used  up  when 
he  reached  London  with  feasting  and 
the  fatigue  of  traveling  by  stage 
coach,  but  he  soon  rallied  and  re- 
sumed his  pleasant  occupation  of 
sight  seeing.  At  Drury  Lane  theatre 
"The  Tender  Husband"  was  well 
acted  and  went  off  with  great  eclat. 
He  was  also  much  entertained  by 
"Othello,  one  of  Shakespere's  mas- 
terpieces, exceedingly  well  done,  and 
well  worth  seeing." 

He  describes  as  one  of  the  greatest 
wonders  he  had  seen  in  England  the 
famous  brewery  of  Thrale  and  Com- 
pany. This  was  not  far  from  the 
time  when  Dr.   Johnson,   as  one  of 


DANIEL    LATHROP  COIT  23 

Thrale's  executors  was  preparing  to 
sell  the  brewery,  and  said,  "we  are 
not  here  to  sell  a  parcel  of  boilers 
and  vats,  but  the  potentiality  of  grow- 
ing rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  ava- 
rice." 

He  also  witnessed,  a  few  days  later, 
the  imposing  ceremonial  of  the  proc- 
lamation of  peace  between  England 
and  the  powers  with  which,  she  had 
been  at  war,  a  noteworthy  event  cele- 
brated with  great  pomp  in  a  formal 
manner  by  a  procession  with  heralds 
to  the  City. 

His  Guide  Book  in  London,  pub- 
lished in  1782,  called  "  the  Ambula- 
tor, or  Stranger's  Companion,"  pur- 
ported to  describe  "whatever  was 
remarkable  either  for  Grandeur,  Ele- 
gancy, Use  or  Curiosity  within  the 
circuit  of  twenty-five  miles."  That 
he  made  good  use  of  his  "ambula- 
tor "  and  his  opportunities,  is  certain, 
but  we  may  not  follow  him  too 
closely,  for  many  years  of  his  life  are 
yet  before  him  and  us. 


24  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

On  October  25  he  set  out  for  Paris 
via  Dover  and  Calais  and  spent  about 
six  months  in  France,  sight  seeing 
of  course,  in  Paris  ;  and  in  the  study 
of  the  language  at  Abbeville.  He 
was  favored  with  the  acquaintance 
of  Doctor  Franklin,  then  our  minister 
in  France,  and  of  the  Marquis  La- 
Fayette,  lately  returned  from  his 
American  campaigns,  and  continued 
his  friendly  intercourse  with  Colonel 
Wadsworth  and  his  son  of  Hartford. 

He  was  greatly  interested  in  wit- 
nessing the  first  successful  balloon 
ascension  made  by  Messrs.  Robert 
and  Charles  from  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries  in  December,  1783.  To  his 
uncle,  Dr.  Joshua,  he  wrote,  "  I  have 
written  my  father  (the  letter  was 
printed  in  the  Norwich  Packet),  an 
account  of  the  new  Flying  Machines, 
or  Balloons  as  they  are  called,  and 
refer  you  to  him  for  a  description. 
The  novelty  of  men's  flying  in  the 
air  with  great  facility  to  any  dis- 
tance will  doubtless  afford  surprise. 


DANIEL    LATHROP  COIT  25 

I  doubt  not  you  have  heard  before  of 
the  machine  but  not  of  the  Aerial 
Voyage  which  has  been  made  in  this 
one,  and  which  I  have  witnessed." 
But  that  he  was  not  fully  convinced 
of  the  ultimate  success  of  the  experi- 
ment appears  in  a  letter  from  his 
friend,  Dr.  Coyte  of  Ipswich,  who 
says,  "  I  was  much  pleased  with  your 
account  of  the  balloon,  and  think 
with  you,  that  for  want  of  steerage 
it  is  a  matter  that  must  be  of  no  con- 
sequence and  will  fall  to  the  ground 
neglected  and  disregarded,"  From 
that  day  to  this  balloons  have  risen 
and  "fallen  to  the  ground,"  and  the 
problem  remains  unsolved,  though 
the  inventor  of  the  Bell  telephone  is 
still  confident  that  within  the  present 
year  he  will  demonstrate  the  entire 
practicability  of  his  plans. 

Early  in  March  he  returned  to  Lon- 
don, and  after  about  seven  weeks 
embarked  on  the  ship  Ceres  for 
America.  Nothing  of  greater  inter- 
est  than    the    usual   vicissitudes  of 


26  DANIEL  LATHROP  COIT 

wind  and  weather  occurred  on  the 
voyage,  except  an  exchange  of  cour- 
tesies with  a  French  fishing  vessel 
off  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland, 
which  gave  in  barter  for  a  dozen  of 
porter  and  a  cheese,  some  fine  fresh 
fish  and  a  ' '  hollowboat,"  which,  being 
alive  when  they  came  on  board  and 
immediately  cooked,  were  the  finest 
he  ever  tasted. 

On  Friday,  June  4,  1784,  he  landed 
in  Boston,  and  after  calling  on  his 
friends  and  relatives,  the  Greens  and 
Hubbards,  he  found  himself  in  Nor- 
wich in  a  little  more  than  a  year  and 
a  day  from  his  departure. 

To  a  bright,  intelligent  young  man, 
old  enough  to  know  what  he  wanted 
to  see  and  do,  yet  young  enough  to 
enjoy  it,  this  year  of  foreign  travel 
was  full  of  pleasure  and  profit  and 
instruction.  He  did  not  go  as  far  or 
as  fast  in  twelve  months  as  the  tour- 
ist now  travels  in  thirty  days  ;  yet 
the  post-chaise  and  the  diligence 
gave   opportunities   for    seeing    and 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  27 

knowing  the  country  and  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  the  people  that 
are  not  afforded  by  automobiles  and 
limited  express  trains. 

He  was  doubtless  a  marked  man  in 
Norwich  after  his  return,  for,  says 
John  Fiske,  "  even  in  a  town  as  large 
as  Philadelphia  at  that  time,  an 
American  who  had  crossed  the  At- 
lantic was  sure  to  be  pointed  out  in 
the  street  '  as  a  man  that  has  been  in 
Europe.' " 

His  comments  on  England  are  not 
uninteresting  :  "The  constitution  of 
Britain  seems  to  be  like  the  body  of 
an  infirm  man  laboring  under  a  com- 
plication of  disorders  which  cannot 
be  cured,  but  must  by  and  by  destroy 
it.  The  State  seems  to  have  many 
evils  to  cure  without  power  to  de- 
stroy any.  The  nation  is  sunk  into 
an  amazing  debt  the  interest  of  which 
is  enormous  tho'  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  be  paid.  The  civil  and  mili- 
tary establishments  call  for  great 
supplies  and  more  than  can  be  spared. 


28  DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT 

The  septennial  parliament  I  think  a 
grevious  burden  and  introduces  ve- 
nality, bribery  and  corruption,  which 
would  be  much  less  the  case  were 
the  members  chosen  annually.  Rob- 
bery, thieving  and  murder  are  car- 
ried to  a  great  height,  and  executions 
very  numerous.  Smuggling,  in  con- 
sequence of  prodigious  duties,  is  at  a 
great  height,  so  that  whole  bands 
go  armed  and  sometimes  abuse  offi- 
cers of  the  customs.  Dr.  Price  says, 
the  dissenting  interest  in  the  country 
is  in  a  declining  way,  and  assigns 
the  cause  in  some  measure  to  the 
Methodists  who  are  increasing  :— 
many  Methodists  join  them." 

So  also,  from  Paris  to  Dr.  Joshua 
Lathrop  :  "The  air  of  Paris  is  vast- 
ly better  than  that  of  London,  but  I 
don't  like  the  city-  as  well.  It  is, 
however,  a  great  and  magnificent 
place,  very  rich  and  opulent,  though 
it  has  but  little  trade.  The  country 
in  general  is  good,  tho'  I  think  in- 
ferior to    England.     The    principal 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  29 

part  of  the  Business  of  this  place 
seems  to  be  Pleasure,  if  that  can  be 
called  Business  :  but  the  Pleasure  of 
London  seems  to  be  Business,  and 
great  as  are  the  two  extremes  they 
are  not  greater,  or  rather  the  differ- 
ence between  them  is  not  greater 
than  the  difference  between  the  in- 
habitants of  the  two  places.  This 
place  seems  to  be  supported  by  for- 
eigners who  flock  here  to  spend  their 
money  and  enjoy  the  amusements  of 
the  place,  but  one  is  surprised  that 
that,  added  to  the  little  business  done 
here,  should  be  sufficient  to  support 
such  numbers  in  the  style  of  afflu- 
ence they  live  in." 

He  was  now  thirty  years  old,  and 
his  return  to  his  native  land  may  be 
said  to  mark  the  close  of  the  first 
period  of  his  life. 

He  resumed  his  residence  in  Nor- 
wich with  his  aunt,  Madam  Jerusha, 
and  continued  in  partnership  with 
his  uncle,  Dr.  Joshua,  until  the  lat- 
ter withdrew  from  active  business. 


30  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

He  then  formed  a  new  partnership 
which  continued  for  ten  or  twelve 
years,  with  his  cousin  and  future 
brother  -  in  -  law,  Thomas  Lathrop. 
The  correspondents  of  the  firm  sent 
their  compliments  and  congratula- 
tions "to  the  good  old  gentleman" 
on  his  retirement,  adding  that  their 
"personal  knowledge  of  Mr.  D.  L. 
Coit  had  given  them  a  high  opinion 
of  his  character,"  and  expressing 
their  willingness  to  continue  rela- 
tions with  the  new  firm  "doubting 
not  that  Mr.  Thomas  Lathrop  is  also 
respectable." 

At  this  time  his  brother,  Thomas, 
an  active  man  of  business ;  his  sister, 
Elizabeth,  wife  of  Christopher  Lef- 
fingwell ;  his  sister,  Lucy,  wife  of 
Andrew  Huntington  ;  his  sister, 
Lydia,  wife  of  William  Hubbard, 
were  all  living  in  Norwich ;  his 
brother,  Joseph,  after  receiving  his 
business  training  from  his  uncles 
had  recently  established  himself  in 
Hartford  ;  and  his  brother,  Joshua,  a 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  31 

distinguished  lawyer,  member  of  the 
Legislature  and  member  of  Congress 
was  living  in  New  London.  His 
Lathrop  kinsfolk  at  Lowthorpe  were 
numerous ;  the  Huntington  family 
connection  was  large  and  friendly, 
while  at  the  Landing,  in  a  beautiful 
situation  at  the  mouth  of  the  She- 
tucket,  with  gardens  sloping  to  the 
water,  the  large  family  of  sons  and 
daughters  of  Captain  Ephraim  Bill 
extended  his  circle  of  friends. 

Whether  it  was  before  he  went  to 
Europe  that  he  was  specially  attract- 
ed by  the  charms  of  a  daughter  of 
the  house,  then  a  young  girl  of 
seventeen,  is  a  matter  for  conjecture; 
nor  did  she  ever  tell  precisely  when 
she  became  conscious  of  his  attach- 
ment, as,  in  presenting  a  rose  to  her 
after  carefully  removing  the  thorns, 
he  ventured  to  hope  that  it  might  be 
his  privilege  to  remove  all  thorns 
from  her  path  in  life.  But  we  do 
know  that  from  London  he  wrote  to 
his  uncle,  Joshua,  that  he  was  buy- 


32  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

ing  window-glass,  hinges,  door-locks, 
nails,  and-so-forth,  with  the  view  of 
building  a  house  on  his  return.  Thus 
it  was,  then,  as  now,  that  coming 
events  cast  their  shadows  before, 
even  through  window  glass  ! 

In  accordance  with  this  purpose, 
in  1785,  he  built  the  house  on  the 
hill,  near  the  Coit  elms,  planted 
there  five  and  thirty  years  before, 
and  to  this  house,  in  November, 
1786,  he  brought  as  his  bride  of  nine- 
teen, Elizabeth  Bill,  daughter  of 
Ephraim  and  Lydia  (Huntington) 
Bill.  Lydia  was  the  daughter  of 
Joshua  Huntington,  and  sister  of 
General  Jabez  Huntington,  the  father 
of  five  sons  not  less  distinguished 
than  himself. 

The  year  1786,  as  has  been  seen, 
was  the  beginning  of  a  new  and  in- 
teresting era  in  his  life.  Happily 
married  and  settled  in  his  new  home, 
his  aged  parents  living  under  his 
roof,  he  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
business   with   which   he   had    long 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  33 

been  connected,  the  auspices,  so  far 
as  he  was  personally  concerned,  were 
full  of  hope  and  promise. 

Not  so,  however,  with  the  country 
at  large.  The  treaty  with  England 
had  indeed  been  signed,  and  the 
United  States  were  nominally  at 
peace  with  all  the  world,  but  there 
was  as  yet  no  settled  government ; 
the  Constitution  was  not  adopted  till 
1787  ;  President  Washington  was  not 
inaugurated  till  1789;  internal  jeal- 
ousies and  dissensions  were  preva- 
lent ;  New  York  and  New  Hampshire 
were  quarreling  about  the  possession 
of  Vermont ;  New  York  was  seeking 
to  impose  tariff  laws  against  New 
Jersey  and  Connecticut :  Pennsyl- 
vania and  Connecticut  were  carrying 
on  a  sanguinary  conflict,  the  so-called 
"Pennamite  war,"  over  territory 
claimed  by  each  in  the  Valley  of  the 
Susquehanna ;  a  fierce  controversy 
raged  as  to  the  location  of  the  pro- 
posed national  capital  ;  the  finances 
of  the  country  were  in  a  deplorable 


34  DANIEL  LATHROP  COIT 

condition  ;  the  vast  territory  west  of 
the  Seaboard  states  was  unsettled 
and  unexplored,  and  the  western 
frontier  was  constantly  menaced  by 
savage  Indian  tribes :  while  in 
Europe,  the  appalling  sounds  of  the 
French  Revolution  were  heard,  the 
short-lived  Republic  came  into  ex- 
istence and  the  rising  star  of  Napo- 
leon, of  evil  omen,  appeared  in  the 
sky. 

But  none  of  these  things  dismayed 
him.  Was  foreign  commerce  em- 
barrassed by  French  and  English 
depredations  on  the  sea,  did  the  em- 
bargo check  all  enterprises  at  home, 
he  pursued  the  even  tenor  of  his  way, 
sensible  that  as  reverses  and  mis- 
fortunes were  inevitable  they  must 
be  accepted  with  patient  fortitude. 

After  the  termination  of  his  part- 
nership with  his  cousin,  Thomas 
Lathrop,  he  began  to  close  his  mer- 
cantile business  in  Norwich,  and 
early  in  the  new  century  was  prac- 
tically out  of  it.     He  sold  the  residue 


DANIEL    LATHROP  COIT  35 

of  his  stock  of  drugs  and  medicines 
to  Doctor  Dwight  Ripley,  the  father 
of  a  large  and  highly  respected 
family  of  sons  and  daughters,  of 
whom  Judge  George  Burbank  Rip- 
ly  married  Hannah,  daughter  of 
Thomas  Lathrop. 

As  early  as  1796,  he  had  become 
interested  as  an  original  subscriber 
in  the  Connecticut  Land  Company, 
in  the  Western  Reserve  in  Ohio.  He 
also  inherited  from  his  father  an  in- 
terest in  the  so-called  "Sufferers 
Land,"  or  "Fire  Lands,"  set  apart  by 
the  State  of  Connecticut  in  the  west- 
ern part  of  the  Reserve  for  the  in- 
demnification of  her  citizens  who 
had  suffered  losses  by  the  fires 
kindled  by  Benedict  Arnold  and  the 
British  General  Tryon  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War. 

His  own  proprietary  interest  by 
purchase  and  inheritance,  and  the 
management  of  property  entrusted 
to  him  by  others  made  incessant 
demands  upon  his   time   and  atten- 


36  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

tion  in  correspondence  and  personal 
visitation,  as  long  as  he  lived.  The 
purpose  of  the  proprietors  was  of 
course  to  cause  the  land  to  be  ex- 
plored and  surveyed  and  sold  as  soon 
as  possible  at  reasonable  prices  to 
actual  settlers.  That  he  might  be 
fully  informed,  although  he  never 
resided  in  Ohio,  he  made  five  jour- 
neys thither,  remaining  for  consid- 
erable periods.  His  first  journey  in 
1801  on  horseback  through  the  moun- 
tains of  Pennsylvania  to  Pittsburg 
and  thence  north  to  Cleveland  was 
not  without  peril.  At  times,  like 
Goldsmith's  Traveler,  he  must  have 
found  himself  remote,  unfriended, 
melancholy,  slow,  in  his  tedious 
journey  of  seven  hundred  miles,  but 
he  made  light  of  his  adventures,  and 
writing  to  his  wife  says,  "we  have 
taken  possession  of  the  '  Land  of 
Canaan.'  The  worst  Hittites  and 
Jebusites  are  the  woods  and  forests 
to  be  cleared, — no  wolves,  bears,  or 
rattlesnakes!"     But  so  rapidly  came 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  37 

improvements  in  traveling  that  twen- 
ty-five years  later,  accompanied  by 
his  wife,  he  made  the  journey  from 
New  York  to  Cleveland  by  steam- 
boat and  the  recently  constructed 
Erie  Canal.  The  canal  of  course 
interested  him  greatly,  recalling  his 
observation  of  canals  in  Holland 
more  than  forty  years  earlier,  and 
he  did  not  fail  to  notice  the  use  of 
natural  gas  at  Fredonia,  New  York, 
— a  novel  sight,   at  that  day. 

This  property  was  at  times  a  heavy 
burden  by  reason  of  the  difficulty  of 
making  sales  to  desirable  settlers, 
and  the  greater  difficulty  of  securing 
payments,  and  effecting  remittances 
by  safe  conveyance  when  the  mails 
were  slow  and  irregular,  and  the 
finances  of  the  country  were  in  a 
most  precarious  condition. 

In  1 80 1,  Mr.  Coit  was  urged  by  his 
brother-in-law,  Joseph  Howland,  a 
merchant  of  large  affairs  in  Norwich, 
to  engage  with  him  in  a  new  enter- 
prise in  which  he  had  become  inter- 


38  DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT 

ested  on  the  Hudson  River  where  he 
had  purchased  for  $63,000  more  than 
three  hundred  acres  of  land,  part  of 
the  ancient  Phillipse  Manor,  now  the 
City  of  Yonkers.  On  this  estate  was 
the  mansion  house  with  several  other 
dwellings,  barns,  shops,  a  sawmill 
and  a  flouring  mill.  It  was  proposed 
that  Mr.  Coit  should  remove  with 
his  family  to  New  York  and  under- 
take the  purchase  of  wheat  and  the 
sale  of  the  flour  to  be  manufactured 
by  Mr.  Howland  at  Phillipsburg, 
where  the  sawmill  river  afforded 
sufficient  water  power  and  where 
transportation  to  New  York  was  easy 
by  boat  or  by  land  carriage. 

Writing  to  his  wife  from  Ohio,  Mr. 
Coit  said,  "I  have  told  brother  How- 
land  I  will  endeavor  to  leave  my 
mind  open  for  conviction,  and  per- 
haps it  will  be  better  for  you  to  do 
the  same,  and  regard  the  proposition 
with  a  suitable  degree  of  attention  :" 
— and  again,  a  month  later,  "was  it 
ten  years  earlier  in  life,   and  was  it 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  39 

not  for  the  unhealthfulness  of  New 
York,  I  should  be  tempted  to  follow 
suit." 

He  did  consider  it  for  a  year,  and, 
finally,  under  advice  of  his  friends, 
he  yielded  to  Mr.  Howland's  very 
flattering  proposals,  and,  renting  his 
house  under  the  elms  and  leaving 
his  three  elder  children  to  attend  Mr. 
Hale's  school  at  Lisbon,  went  to  New 
York  with  his  wife  and  the  three 
younger  children,  Maria,  Eliza,  and 
two-year-old  Joshua,  early  in  May, 
1802.  We  can  imagine  their  feelings 
as  they  went  down  the  river  leaving 
their  beautiful  home.  "It  is  a  per- 
plexing business,"  he  wrote,  "I  wish 
it  was  over,  or  had  never  been 
thought  of."  Again  :  "I  feel  like  a 
cat  in  a  strange  garret,  in  New  York  :" 
and,  a  few  months  later,  "  I  am  a  lit- 
tle more  at  home,  but  not  pleased 
with  the  bustle  of  New  York." 

The  family  occupied  a  pleasant 
house  in  Washington  Street,  near 
Cortland  Street,  at  that  time  a  de- 


40  DANIEL  LATHROP  COIT 

sirable  place  of  residence,  near  to 
Mrs.  Aspinwall,  Mrs.  Woolsey  and 
Mrs.  Levi  Coit,  his  wife's  nieces. 
His  place  of  business  was  perhaps 
half  a  mile  away  on  South  Street, 
between  Coenties  Slip  and  the  Bat- 
tery, then,  as  now,  the  great  landing 
place  for  vessels  with  grain  and  flour. 
But  the  proximity  of  Washington 
Street  to  the  North  River  exposed 
the  family  to  great  inconvenience  at 
high  tides,  when  a  foot  or  two  of 
water  on  the  kitchen  floor  was  not 
conducive  to  health  or  comfort. 
After  a  year  they  removed  to  a  bet- 
ter situation  on  Broadway  near 
Reade  Street  and  the  City  Hall,  but 
the  prevalence  of  yellow  fever  in  the 
summer  of  1803  compelled  the  re- 
moval of  his  family  to  one  of  Mr. 
Howland's  houses  at  Phillipsburg, — 
an  agreeable  change  for  his  wife  who 
thus  became  the  neighbor  of  her 
sister,  and  for  the  children  who  had 
all  the  freedom  that  such  a  pleasant 
residence  could  give. 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  41 

Two  years'  experience  satisfied  him 
that  financial  results  would  not  com- 
pensate for  the  sacrifices  he  was 
making,  and  he  was  happy  to  re-es- 
tablished his  family  in  their  old 
home  in  May,  1804,  he,  himself, 
remaining  "amphibious,"  as  he  said, 
for  a  few  months,  pending  the  settle- 
ment of  his  business  in  New  York. 

It  was  in  this  summer,  soon  after 
the  Fourth  of  July,  that  the  city,  and 
indeed  the  whole  country,  was 
shocked  by  the  murder  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  in  a  duel  with  Aaron  Burr. 
His  account  of  the  prevailing  excite- 
ment, which  he  personally  witnessed, 
is  of  special  interest.  "The  busi- 
ness," he  says,  "causes  great  agita- 
tion, and  in  my  humble  opinion  is  a 
proof  that  great  men  are  not  always 
wise." 

It  was  at  about  this  time  that 
Jerome  Bonaparte  and  his  bride, 
who  was  Miss  Patterson,  of  Balti- 
more, arrived  in  New  York,  "with 
the  expectation  of  sailing  immediate- 


42  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

ly  for  Europe.  Unfortunately,  how- 
ever, for  the  little  great  man  and  his 
Lady,  an  English  frigate  and  a  sloop 
of  war,  sent,  I  suppose,  from  Halifax 
to  escort  them,  came  and  placed 
themselves  alongside  of  them,  and 
since,  'tis  said,  another  English  sloop 
of  war  is  at  the  Hook,  so  that  Mon- 
sieur and  his  suite  have  again  re- 
turned on  shore  where  they  will 
probably  remain  until  they  get  aid 
from  their  unpleasant  condition." 

After  returning  to  Norwich,  where 
he  passed  the  remainder  of  his  life, 
he  did  not  again  embark  in  the 
hazards  of  commerce,  his  most  im- 
portant business  interest  being  in  his 
Western  lands.  But  he  was  far  from 
idle,  and,  as  he  wrote  to  his  friend, 
Governor  Huntington,  of  Ohio,  "em- 
ployment of  almost  any  kind  is  in 
my  estimation  one  of  the  first  re- 
quisites to  happiness." 

Although  he  was  not  prone  to  rash 
speculation  he  was  not  unwilling, 
after  careful  investigation,  to  make 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  43 

moderate  investments  in  new  ven- 
tures that  interested  him.  Thus  the 
"old  tan  lot"  on  the  hill  above  his 
house  was  long  remembered  as  the 
place  of  his  experiments  in  making 
leather.  So  also,  having  a  salt  spring 
on  his  land  in  Ohio,  he  encouraged 
his  son,  Henry,  to  engage  in  its 
manufacture  there,  and,  as  his  com- 
monplace books  show,  carefully 
studied  the  subject  and  after  seeing 
the  process  at  Rochester,  on  Buz- 
zard's Bay,  Massachusetts,  believed 
it  might  be  not  only  possible  but 
profitable  to  obtain  salt  by  evapora- 
tion of  sea  water  on  Long  Island 
Sound  or  even  on  the  Thames  River. 
In  1796,  with  others,  he  was  inter- 
ested in  forming  a  library  company 
in  Norwich  and  acted  as  its  secretary. 
The  original  subscription  list,  and 
invoices  and  a  printed  catalogue  of 
books  purchased  from  Isaac  Beers, 
bookseller,  of  New  Haven,  have 
come  down  to  us.  The  titles,  rang- 
ing from    grave    to    gay,    comprise 


44  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

many  excellent  books,  such  as  no 
gentleman's  library  should  be  with- 
out, and  that  are  readable  to-day,  but 
they  have  been  scattered  and  no 
remnant  of  the  collection  can  be 
found.  Among  them  were  the  Ram- 
bler and  the  Spectator;  "the  graver 
English  poets,"  Thomson,  Young, 
Pope  and  Cowper ;  Miss  Burney's 
Evelina  and  Cecilia ;  Sir  Charles 
Grandison,  seven  volumes ;  the  En- 
cyclopaedia, eighteen  volumes  ;  Gib- 
bons' Rome ;  and  the  British  Theatre, 
fifteen  volumes.  He  had  already, 
while  in  London,  made  purchases  for 
his  own  library  from  Mr.  Longman, 
the  publisher,  with  whom  he  was  on 
friendly  terms.  He  also  consigned 
for  sale  to  Mr.  Beers,  a  lot  of  medi- 
cal books,  probably  from  the  library 
of  his  uncle. 

"Atone  time,  the  production  of 
raw  silk  he  thought  might  be  availa- 
ble and  with  this  view  he  carefully 
studied  the  modes  of  culture  and 
manufacture    abroad    and     in     this 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  45 

country  and  procured  experienced 
persons  to  raise  one  or  two  crops  of 
the  silk  worm  on  a  sufficiently  large 
scale  under  his  own  inspection,  hav- 
ing fortunately  for  the  experiment 
an  ample  supply  of  the  proper  mul- 
berry trees  at  his  disposal."  The  re- 
sult was  not  altogether  unsatisfactory, 
and  he  sold  his  silk  at  a  fair  profit, 
but,  he  remarks,  "while  in  a  family 
among  farmers  the  business  might 
be  carried  on  advantageously  by 
children  and  women,  at  times  when 
little  else  would  be  done,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  manage  an  extensive 
manufacture  of  this  kind  when  so 
much  labor  is  required  at  times,  for 
short  periods  only,  and  afterwards 
no  employment." 

In  connection  with  his  son,  Daniel, 
who  resided  for  some  time  in  New 
Jersey  for  the  purpose  of  procuring 
quercitron  bark,  largely  used  by 
dyers  and  tanners,  he  engaged  in  the 
business  of  drying  and  grinding  the 
bark,  for  which  his  old  tan  bark  mill 


46  DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT 

was  available ;  but,  desiring  some- 
thing better,  he  caused  a  new  mill, 
specially  adapted  to  his  purposes,  to 
be  constructed  after  his  own  design 
at  Hudson,  New  York,  and  made 
large  shipments  of  the  ground  bark 
to  New  York  and  London  where  for 
a  time  it  yielded  a  handsome  profit. 

In  the  year  1802,  together  with  a 
few  friends,  he  organized  the  Nor- 
wich Sealing  Company  and  fitted  out 
two  vessels,  the  Miantonomo  and  the 
Oneco,  at  considerable  expense,  for 
a  voyage  round  Cape  Horn  to  the 
northern  Pacific,  their  ultimate  des- 
tination being  a  port  in  China  with  a 
cargo  of  seal  skins.  Some  idea  of 
the  risks  to  be  incurred  and  of  the 
profits  anticipated  is  suggested  by  his 
willingness  to  pay  a  premium  of 
twenty-five  per  cent,  for  insurance. 
Unfortunately,  the  vessels,  after  tak- 
ing on  board  more  than  seventy 
thousand  seal  skins,  were  seized  and 
detained  by  a  Spanish  vessel  on  sus- 
picion  of  having  been   engaged  in 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  47 

traffic  with  an  English  cruiser.  In 
a  compromise  settlement  the  under- 
writers paid  as  for  a  partial  loss,  but 
not  till  twenty-three  years  later  did 
the  United  States  government,  which 
in  behalf  of  the  owners  and  insurers 
had  demanded  indemnity  from  Spain, 
finally  adjust  the  claims. 

If  none  of  these  ventures,  nor 
others  that  might  be  named,  yielded 
much  profit,  on  the  other  hand  they 
resulted  in  little  loss,  and  afforded 
agreeable  and  interesting  occupation. 
After  he  had  duly  weighed  and  con- 
sidered a  business  proposition  he 
accepted  the  result  philosophically 
quite  undisturbed  by  adverse  fortune. 
"I  am  sorry  for  the  loss,"  he  said, 
"but  it  cannot  be  helped."  "Re- 
verses must  be  expected  and  prepared 
for  in  business."  "Uninterrupted 
good  fortune  cannot  be  looked  for." 

Enterprise,  and  interest  in  new 
schemes  were  balanced  by  prudence 
and  foresight,  and  through  all  the 
chances  and  changes  of  his  varied 


48  DANIEL  LATHROP    COIT 

business  experience,  and,  indeed,  in 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  life  his  pre- 
dominant characteristic  was  equa- 
nimity. 

In  1808,  his  friend,  Joseph  Howland, 
who  was  then  living  in  New  York 
became  seriously  embarrassed  in  his 
affairs  by  the  disastrous  failure  of 
Jesse  Brown  &  Son,  merchants  in 
Norwich.  Mr.  Howland  was  large- 
ly interested  in  real  estate  in  de- 
tached pieces  in  Norwich,  New  Lon- 
don and  Montville,  and  having  made 
an  assignment  to  his  sons-in-law,  resi- 
dents of  New  York,  they  found  it 
difficult  to  manage  the  property  at 
that  distance,  tied  up,  as  it  was,  with 
leases,  mortgages  and  attachments. 
They  therefore  entrusted  the  business 
to  Mr.  Coit  as  their  agent.  He  found 
it  anything  but  a  sinecure,  requiring 
close  personal  attention  to  details, 
correspondence  and  litigation,  and 
calling  for  all  his  tact  and  business 
experience  for  several  succeeding 
years. 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  49 

Thus,  although  he  was  nominally 
"out  of  business,"  his  advice  and  as- 
sistance were  in  constant  requisition 
by  his  friends  and  neighbors,  so  that 
it  may  be  said  no  small  part  of  his 
vocation  was  in  "helping  when  he 
met  them  lame  dogs  over  stiles." 

In  1818  by  a  fall  from  a  ladder 
while  he  was  picking  grapes,  he 
fractured  his  right  thigh  bone  near 
the  hip  joint  The  accident  was  in- 
deed serious  and  disabled  him  for 
more  than  a  year,  but  improvement 
came  slowly  and  he  was  able  to  make 
several  journeys,  on  one  occasion  to 
Massachusetts,  with  Mr.  Gilman  and 
one  or  two  other  friends,  where  they 
visited  the  great  cotton  mills  at 
Taunton  and  Waltham,  which  were 
particularly  interesting  on  account 
of  the  new  manufactories  then  being 
established  at  the  Falls.  "At  Ply- 
mouth, which  it  has  become  quite 
fashionable  to  visit,  we  were  gratified 
by  seeing  the  cradle  of  our  New 
England  settlements,    and   had    the 


50  DANIEL  LATHROP  COIT 

pleasure,  too,  to  place  our  feet  on  the 
famous  Rock  that  first  received  the 
footsteps  of  the  fathers." 

He  also  tells  of  another  occasion 
when,  as  he  was  driving  home  alone 
from  Vermont  where  he  had  landed 
interests,  he  was  arrested  at  Bolton, 
Connecticut,  and  detained  and  fined 
for  travelling  on  the  Sabbath  day ! 
This  seems  remarkable  in  these  days 
when  automobile  cars  rush  madly 
over  the  country  with  terrific  noise 
seven  days  in  the  week, — and  yet 
there  are  good  men  who  use  these 
and  other  uncanonical  means  of  loco- 
motion for  their  Sabbath  day's  jour- 
neys of  business  or  pleasure,  main- 
taining that  the  world  is  growing 
better  !  This  was  certainly  the  opin- 
ion of  the  good  lady  who  was  asked 
if  the  first  day  of  the  week  was  as 
well  kept  as  it  had  been  in  her 
younger  days. 

'*  No,"  was  her  reply,  "the  Sabbath 
is  not  as  well  kept,  but  the  rest  of  the 
week  is  kept  much  better." 


DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT  51 

It  was  also  after  this  accident  that 
he  made  his  fifth  journey  to  Ohio  to 
which  reference  has  already  been 
made.  Describing  his  proposed 
route,  in  a  letter  to  his  son,  he 
said,  "Thus,  you  see,  we  have  em- 
ployment for  considerable  part  of  the 
summer  from  which  we  hope  for 
considerable  amusement ;  and  inno- 
cent amusement,  at  our  time  of  life, 
is  about  the  whole  that  is  left  us.  I 
don't  know  that  we  could  do  better." 

But  after  five  serene  and  happy 
years  it  was  his  misfortune  in  No- 
vember, 1 83 1,  to  meet  with  another 
serious  accident.  He  had  spent  the 
evening  as  was  his  custom,  in  reading 
aloud  to  his  wife,  a  custom,  which 
she  said,  gave  her  great  pleasure. 
At  the  usual  hour  he  took  a  candle 
and  was  about  to  bank  up  the  fires 
and  lock  up  the  house  for  the  night, 
when  his  foot  caught  in  the  rocker  of 
her  chair,  and,  unable  to  extricate 
himself,  he  fell  heavily  to  the  floor 
and  again  fraqtured  his  right  thigh. 


52  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

He  knew  perfectly  what  had  hap- 
pened, and  calmly  directed  what 
should  be  done  until  Mr.  Gilman  and 
the  doctor  were  summoned. 

From  this  accident  he  never  fully 
recovered,  but  his  letters  describing 
it  and  the  former  accident,  and  the 
serious  illness  that  followed,  display 
not  only  his  close  observation  of  de- 
tails, but  wonderful  serenity  and 
patience,  and  thoughtful  considera- 
tion for  his  anxious  friends. 

Writing  to  his  son,  December  22, 
1 83 1,  he  said,  "I  have  no  pain  in  the 
limb,  save,  occasionally,  a  rheumatic 
affection.  It  is  a  rule  with  me,  you 
know,  to  endeavor  to  draw  all  the 
benefit  from  misfortune  that  it  ad- 
mits of,  and  on  the  present  occasion 
not  a  small  consolation  is  derived 
from  the  consideration  that  the  mis- 
fortune at  your  period  of  life  would 
have  been  greater.  I  have  now 
nearly  run  my  race,  and  without  this 
accident  a  few  quiet  and  peaceable 
years  were  all  I  could  rationally  hope 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  53 

to  enjoy,  and  as  active  exertion  is 
not  absolutely  necessary,  and  books 
afford  me  amusement,  I  may  still 
hope  for  them,  if  it  please  the 
Supreme  Ruler  of  all  events  to  grant 
them." 

Nothing  could  be  more  beautiful 
in  domestic  correspondence  than  his 
letters  to  his  children,  beginning 
when  the  }^oungest  was  not  two  years 
old,  and  the  eldest  was  scarcely  more 
than  fourteen,  and  continuing  until 
a  few  days  before  the  close  of  his  life, 
— letters  of  tender,  fatherly  counsel, 
of  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  each 
one  of  his  children,  enlivened  occa- 
sionally with  gentle  humor,  and,  as 
years  went  on,  becoming  more  and 
more  free  in  expressions  of  affection. 

When  his  two  elder  sons  went  to 
New  York  to  engage  in  business,  he 
watched  their  careers,  not  without 
solicitude,  sympathizing  with  them 
in  their  perplexities  and  gratified 
with  their  prosperity.  His  youngest 
son,  Joshua,  a  graduate  of  Yale,  es- 


54  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

tablished  in  New  York  as  a  lawyer, 
had  a  life  of  uninterrupted  success  in 
his  profession,  to  the  entire  satisfac- 
tion of  his  father. 

When  his  eldest  son,  Daniel,  after 
many  years  of  isolation  and  close 
application  to  business  in  South 
America,  had  attained  great  pros- 
perity, he  was  delighted,  not  so 
much  because  his  son  had  made  a 
fortune,  as  because  of  the  warm 
commendations  he  received  from  his 
business  friends  and  associates. 
Writing  to  him,  July,  1825,  he  says: 

"I  have  long  and  with  much  so- 
licitude sought  for  some  intelligence 
in  your  letters  relative  to  the  satis- 
faction you  may  have  afforded  your 
friends  in  London,  and  now  it  comes 
in  full  tale.  The  extracts  from  the 
letters  from  Messrs.  Huth  &  Co.  and 
Mr.  Huth  individually,  who  could 
not  be  satisfied  with  the  testimony 
of  the  house,  but  must  add  his  own 
personal  declaration  to  manifest  his 
perfect  satisfaction  and  his  testimony 


DANIEL    LATHROP  COIT  55 

of  cordial  esteem  and  perfect  gratifi- 
cation, are,  indeed,  such  a  treat  to  me 
I  want  words  to  express.  Nothing 
short  of  your  own  personal  health 
and  welfare,  could  be  half  so  gratify- 
ing, and  although  I  have  gone  along 
with  you  in  all  your  trials  and  suc- 
cess with  great  interest,  yet  there 
seemed  to  be  something  wanting  till 
I  could  know  that  your  proceedings 
gave  entire  satisfaction  to  those  kind 
friends  who  had  placed  such  un- 
limited confidence  in  you.  The 
gratification  I  experience  from  this 
circumstance  can  only  be  estimated 
by  your  own  sensations  on  the  receipt 
of  those  letters  ;  and  more,  I  am  sure, 
I  need  not  say." 

And  again,  May  10,  1826  (after  Mr. 
Perit's  return  from  Europe),  he 
wrote,  "I  have  been  delighted  with 
Mr.  Perit's  account  of  the  estimation 
that  your  friends,  Messrs.  Huth  & 
Co.,  entertain  of  you,  and  all  your 
management  of  the  vast  concerns 
you  have  had  on  hand.     For  this  I 


56  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

had  been  prepared  by  your  own 
communications  and  copies  of  the 
testimonials  they  had  given  you,  but 
this  is  a  renewal  and  confirmation  of 
all  and  is  highly  pleasing  to  me." 

His  son,  Henry,  at  an  early  age, 
married  and  settled  in  Ohio  where  he 
became  a  large  land  owner,  and 
conducted  numerous  enterprises  with 
great  zeal,  and  with  considerable 
success. 

In  1811,  his  eldest  daughter,  Lydia, 
was  married  to  Professor  James  L. 
Kingsley  of  Yale  College.  Her 
father's  letters,  and  his  not  infre- 
quent visits,  indicate  his  warm 
affection  for  her,  and  his  gratifica- 
tion at  the  excellent  standing  of  her 
sons,  at  school  and  in  college.  One 
of  his  letters  to  the  youngest  son,  in 
a  kind  and  playful  style,  is  still  pre- 
served by  "Master  William's"  grand- 
children. 

His  daughter,  Maria,  in  1823,  be- 
came the  wife  of  Pelatiah  Perit,  a 
native  of  Norwich,  and  a  long-time 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  57 

resident  and  prominent  merchant  of 
New  York.  With  this  daughter,  his 
correspondence  was  continuous,  the 
last  letter  he  wrote  being  addressed 
to  her.  In  his  letters  to  Daniel  he 
speaks  in  high  terms  of  Mr.  Perit : 
thus,  "He  cannot  be  known  any- 
where without  being  esteemed."  "I 
do  not  speak  without  reflection  in 
saying  that  I  believe  few  men  in 
New  York  are  held  in  higher  estima- 
tion." "Few  commercial  houses  in 
New  York  stand  on  so  commanding 
ground  as  Goodhue  &  Co.,  and  our 
friend,  Mr.  Perit,  does  honor  to  the 
establishment  and  himself  wherever 
known." 

His  youngest  daughter,  Eliza,  who 
was  married  in  1820  to  William  C. 
Gilman  was  the  only  one  of  his 
family  who  continued  to  live  in  Nor- 
wich. At  an  early  period  he  became 
attached  to  her  husband,  and,  before 
her  marriage,  in  proposing  him  as  a 
trustee  of  the  Erie  Company,  he 
wrote    to    General     Perkins,     "The 


58  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

person  whom  I  have  in  view  is  a 
young  gentleman  living  in  town  by 
the  name  of  William  C.  Gilman  :  he 
is  a  good  accountant,  a  ready  pen- 
man, and  an  amiable  man,  and  on 
my  own  account  desirable,  as  he  is 
like  to  become  one  of  my  family." 

Writing  to  Daniel,  in  South  Amer- 
ica, he  says,  "I  could  wish  you  had 
been  better  acquainted  with  this 
brother-in-law  of  yours,  for  I  want 
you  to  love  him  as  much  as  do  the 
rest  of  his  acquaintance."  And, 
again,  ""We  have  much  satisfaction 
from  the  attention  of  Eliza  and  her 
very  good  husband,  who  are  as 
pleasantly  settled  as  at  any  house  in 
town,  and  whose  prospects  are  as 
good  as  most." 

He  was  greatly  interested  in  the 
building  of  their  new  house,  and  de- 
scribing its  pleasing  situation  in  de- 
tail to  Daniel,  recommends  it  as  a 
subject  worthy  of  his  pencil.  After 
his  second  accident,  "William  and 
Eliza"  occupied  the  Thomas  house, 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  59 

with  their  children,  in  order  to  be 
near  him.  He  wrote  to  Maria,  in 
December,  1831,  "  This  good  brother 
and  sister  of  yours  do  everything  in 
their  power  to  smooth  the  latter  end 
of  our  path  through  life,  and  ap- 
parently with  as  much  satisfaction 
as  if  it  was  their  own  on  which  they 
were  bestowing  the  attention." 

And  in  March  of  the  following 
year,  writing  to  the  same,  "Our 
neighbors  on  the  hill  (the  Gilmans) 
continue  their  constant  attention  and 
kindness.  Yesterday  we  dined  with 
them  and  I  walked  home  on  crutches. 
Greatly  as  the  necessity  of  their  at- 
tention has  lessened  we  shall  hardly 
know  how  to  part  with  them.  But  I 
find  I  touch  a  tender  cord  which 
easily  vibrates  ;  the  tear  starts,  and, 
though  I  say  this  to  one  of  them,  I 
cannot  refrain  from  saying,  O,  How 
are  we  Blessed  in  our  Children  I" 

At  a  time  when  it  seemed  probable 
that  Mr.  Gilman  might  be  induced 
by  better  business  prospects  to  leave 


60  DANIEL  LATHROP  COIT 

Norwich,  he  wrote,  "I  need  not  say 
how  much  we  shall  be  affected  by 
his  leaving  us,  for  with  all  his  kind- 
ness and  attention  he  has  caused  us 
to  lean  upon  him, — perhaps  too 
much." 

And  to  his  son, — 

"We  have  great  satisfaction,  my 
son,  in  the  connections  which  all 
your  sisters  have  formed.  I  believe 
it  is  a  rare  instance  that  all  the 
females  of  a  family  have  been  so 
fortunate." 

"There  is  much  reason  for  satis- 
faction, my  son,  in  the  present  cir- 
cumstances and  prospects  of  our 
family  and  I  hope  there  may  be  no 
want  of  grateful  sensations  on  that 
account." 

It  is  to  be  wished  that  these  ex- 
tracts might  be  supplemented  by  an 
ample  selection  from  his  letters, 
printed  verbatim.  They  are,  uncon- 
sciously to  himself,  his  autobiogra- 
phy, not  edited  and  revised  for  pub- 
lication,  but  proclaiming  him  as  a 


DANIEL   LATHROP  CUIT  CI 

man  who  had  "a  right  judgment 
in  all  things."  They  contain  not  a 
syllable  that  might  have  been  better 
omitted,  not  a  word  of  unkindly 
comment  on  the  men  or  affairs  that 
he  spoke  of  freely  in  the  confidence 
of  domestic  and  friendly  correspond- 
ence. He  had  nothing  to  be  ashamed 
of,  and  nothing  to  conceal. 

Had  he  then  no  faults?  If  he  had 
any,  they  were  known  only  to  his 
own  conscience  and  to  his  Maker. 
After  carefully  scrutinizing  these 
letters,  "the  Accusing  Spirit,"  might 
give  them  in  at  heaven's  chancery 
without  a  blush,  and  "the  Record- 
ing Angel"  would  find  not  a  word  to 
be  "blotted  out  with  a  tear." 

He  was  not  unconscious  of  the 
physical  infirmities  that  rested  heavi- 
ly upon  him  in  the  last  two  years  of 
his  life,  nor  did  he  attempt  to  con- 
ceal them  from  himself  or  his  friends, 
but  it  was  his  endeavor  to  bear  them 
with  such  cheerful  fortitude  as  would 
relieve  those  who  were  about  him,  as 


62  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

far  as  possible,  from  undue  solicitude. 
Writing  to  his  daughter  whom  he 
sometimes  addressed  as  "  My  dearly 
beloved  Maria,"  he  said,  "But  your 
troubles  did  not  cease  it  seems  when 
you  reached  the  steamboat  which  was 
so  very  much  crowded.  We  are  fre- 
quently reminded  that  we  are  not  to 
expect  unmixed  enjoyment  in  any 
station  or  employment  :  amidst  con- 
stant changes  it  would  be  strange 
if  we  did  not  at  times  get  jostled 
and  experience  some  inconveniences, 
which,  after  they  are  over,  are  par- 
tially made  up  by  the  pleasure  we 
have  in  laughing  at  them,  provided 
they  are  not  of  too  serious  a  nature, 
such  as  losing  our  baggage  and  hav- 
ing to  return  twenty  miles  for  it ;  or 
getting  a  serious  fall,  and  breaking  a 
limb  that  will  take  a  twelve  month 
to  mend  it !  Now  I  think  the 
tendency  good  to  reflect  in  the  midst 
of  our  petty  disquietudes,  how  much 
worse  they  might  have  been,  and 
draw  all  the  consolation  possible  from 


DANIEL   LATHROP   COIT  63 

misfortunes  that  they  admit  of.  I 
do  not  think  our  good  friend,  Mrs. 
C,  exactly  calculated  to  seek  much 
for  this  sort  of  consolation.  She  is 
alive  to  the  evil,  and  determined  to 
regard  it  as  such  to  its  full  extent, 
without  favor  or  affection,  while  her 
daughter,  if  I  mistake  not,  would 
rather  laugh  it  off,  and  make  light 
of  it!" 

It  was  at  no  time  his  custom,  as  it 
was  of  some  excellent  men  and 
women  of  his  day,  to  speak  and 
write  freely  of  his  own  inward 
spiritual  and  religious  convictions. 
He  was  one  of  those  "who  owned 
the  covenant,"  and  all  his  children 
were  "admitted  to  baptism"  in  the 
first  church  of  Norwich  ;  yet  possibly, 
some  of  his  friends  wished  that  he 
was  less  reticent.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
however  desirable  it  is  that  a  man 
shall  confess  with  his  mouth,  it  is 
still  better  to  believe  in  the  heart, 
and,  inasmuch  as  he  lived  a  godly, 
righteous  and  sober  life,  so  it  cannot 


64  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

be  doubted  that  he  was  gathered  to 
his  fathers  having  the  testimony  of 
a  good  conscience,  in  favor  with  God 
and  in  perfect  charity  with  the 
world. 

The  words  of  his  son,  Joshua,  have 
already  been  freely  quoted,  and  bor- 
rowing from  them  once  more  this 
memoir  may  now  fitly  be  closed. 

"In  his  social  and  domestic  rela- 
tions his  character  was  singularly 
attractive  and  exemplary.  Thought- 
ful and  unwearied  in  preparation  for 
every  duty,  he  was  resolute  and 
firm  in  execution.  Unassuming  and 
punctilious  in  rendering  to  every  one 
the  dues  and  courtesies  of  life,  noth- 
ing could  surpass  his  forbearance  and 
indulgence  for  the  failings  and  weak- 
nesses of  others ;  while  his  disinter- 
estedness, his  sincerity,  his  freedom 
from  prejudice,  united  with  a  judg- 
ment ripened  by  a  wide  intercourse 
with  mankind,  gave  a  weight  and 
sanction  to  his  counsels  that  were 


DANIEL    LATHROP  COIT  G5 

often  sought  and  were  unobtrusively 
rendered. 

"In  politics,  he  was  a  federalist  of 
the  old  school,  satisfied  that  our  form 
of  government  was  the  one  best 
adapted  to  our  circumstances,  only 
requiring  to  be  administered  by  up- 
right men,  and  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  interfere  as  little  as  practicable 
with  the  legitimate  pursuits  of  the 
private  citizen.  But  he  took  no 
active  part  in  public  affairs  further 
than  in  systematically  voting  at 
elections,  and  serving  two  terms  in 
the  office  of  Representative  in  the 
State  Legislature  ;  obligations  he  con- 
sidered equally  due  by  the  citizen 
to  the  public  when  called  upon,  for 
himself  preferring  the  repose  and 
unobtrusive  pursuits  of  private  life. 

"He  had  the  satisfaction  to  sur- 
vive until  he  had  seen  all  his  six 
children  established  in  life  ;  and  he 
died  on  the  27th  of  November,  1833, 
in  a  ripe  old  age,  before  time  had 
impaired   the  powers  of  his   richly 


G6  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

stored  and  disciplined  mind ;  with 
the  consolations  of  a  firm,  religious 
faith,  not  presumptuous  or  ostenta- 
tious, but  in  keeping  with  his  charac- 
ter,— calm,  deliberate,  and  resigned. 

"His  widow,  who  survived  him 
by  thirteen  years,  and  died  March  8, 
1846,  was  endeared  to  her  family  and 
a  numerous  circle  of  friends  by  her 
benevolence,  her  unpretending  piety 
and  the  undeviating  sweetness  of 
her  disposition,  qualities  that  cheered 
and  brightened  the  closing  years  of 
his  life. 

"Both  are  buried  in  the  old  bury- 
ing-ground  in  Norwich  Town.  Their 
portraits,  painted  by  Fisher,  are  still 
preserved  in  the  family." 


DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT  G7 


Their  gravestones  bear  the  follow- 
ing inscriptions  : 

Daniel  L.  Coit. 

Born  September  20,  1756. 

Died  November  27,  1833. 

Death  bursts  the  involving  cloud  and  all  is  day. 


Elizabeth  Coit. 

Born  May  14,  1767. 

Died  March  8,  1846. 

Whose    life    evinced    the    sincerity    of    her 

christian    profession,    and    whose    death    was 

cheered  by  an  unwavering  trust  in  a  blessed 

immortality. 


68  DANIEL   LATHROP  COIT 


A  well-known  writer  represents  a 
traveler  as  weeping  at  the  tomb  of 
Adam  because  his  great  ancestor 
never  knew  him ! 

Not  all  of  us  are  equal  to  all  things 
at  all  times,  but,  if  we  shed  no  tears 
as  we  go  with  pansies  and  rosemary 
to  our  grandfather's  grave  in  the  old 
up-town  burying-ground,  we  never- 
theless hold  him  in  pious  memory, 
and  indulge  vain  regrets  that  it  was 
not  our  privilege  to  see  him  face  to 
face,  in  his  habit  as  he  lived. 

His  eldest  granddaughter,  in  a 
charming,  familiar  letter,  recorded 
her  impressions  of  him  and  his  do- 
mestic life  as  she  received  them  in 
her  early  childhood  ;  and  to  his  son's 
filial  appreciation  of  his  character 
it  is  superfluous  to  add  a  single  word. 

But  this  prolonged  study  of  his 
life  and  the  perusal  of  his  corre- 
spondence continued  for  more  than 
half  a  century,  have  brought  us  into 


DANIEL   LATHROP   COIT  G9 

relations  of  such  affectionate  in- 
timacy with  him  that  his  portrait, 
which  has  looked  upon  us  benignant- 
ly  all  our  days,  is  no  longer  paint 
and  canvas  but  is  transformed  into  a 
veritable,  living  personage. 

We  sit  by  his  fireside,  interested 
listeners,  as  he  reads  aloud  to  our 
grandmother,  or  tells  of  his  long 
journeys  in  this  and  in  foreign  lands. 

We  walk  with  him  in  his  gardens, 
his  orchards  and  meadows,  and  ac- 
company him  in  all  weathers  to  "the 
landing,"  when  the  roads  are  rougher 
and  the  miles  are  longer  than  those 
that  are  known  to  most  of  the 
younger  generation. 

We  see  him  riding  away  on  his 
pony  to  visit  his  brothers  at  Canter- 
bury or  New  London,  or,  seated  with 
his  wife  in  the  old-fashioned  chaise, 
on  a  leisurely  journey  to  Hartford  or 
New  Haven. 

At  times  we  find  him  engrossed  with 
affairs,  yet  always  maintaining  a 
quiet  dignity  that  repels  undue  fa- 


70  DANIEL  LATHROP   COIT 

miliarity,  and  a  gracious  courtes}^ 
that  wins  and  cements  enduring 
friendships  ;  and,  finally,  in  an  old 
age  serenely  bright,  we  see  him 
beautifully  exemplifying  the  tradi- 
tional legend  of  his  family 

Virtus   Sola   Nobilitas. 

w.    c.   G. 


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